U.S. Triples Anti-Dumping Duty on Steel Line Pipes Import from South Korea

As per U.S. Triples Anti-Dumping Duty on Steel Oil Pipes Import from South Korea
As per the latest updates, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) has almost tripled its anti-dumping duties on South Korean steel line pipes (used for oil industry) against last year despite the United States Court of International Trade's (USCIT) recent ruling against its duties on OCTG (Oil Country Tubular Goods) imported from South Korea.

The department recently released a preliminary anti-dumping duty determination regarding the oil pipeline products, fixing this year's duties at 59.09%, 26.47% and 41.53% for Nexteel, SeAH Steel and the others including Hyundai Steel, respectively.

In case of Nexteel, which has the largest exports to the United States amongst all the three companies, the tariff rate skyrocketed from 18.3% to 59.09% in just one year due to the company's low product prices in U.S. The tariff rate applied to SeAH Steel, the second-largest, rose from 17.81 % to 26.47 %. Likewise, that applied to Hyundai Steel rose from 18.77 % to 41.53 %.

The DoC releases preliminary and final anti-dumping duty determinations for products each year in view of the difference between the product's prices in its source country and export destination, subsidies in the former, and other factors.

The department fixes tariff rates by looking into the largest and second-largest exporters and applies the average to the others. The preliminary determination released this time is related to those exported between December 2016 and November 2017 and the final determination for the products is scheduled for July this year.

U.S. has been imposing stringent trade restrictions on steel imports in the country in an attempt to revive its domestic steel industry. In March last year, U.S. announced 25% import duty on steel imports.

Targeting South Korea which is one of its key steel exporters, in April 2018, the Trump government announced the imposition of up to 75.81% on OCTG imported from South Korea. However, in Jan'19, the USCIT put the brakes on the Particular Market Situation (PMS), which is a method the U.S. DoC has used in imposing high tariffs on South Korean steel and the South Korean steel companies were anticipating that the court's recent decision will help them avoid massive tariffs.